FRAN. It is a man's voice: Gentle Ifabella, Turn you the key, and know his business of him; You may, I may not; you are yet unfworn: When you have vow'd, you must not speak with

men,

But in the presence of the prioress:

Then, if you speak, you must not fhow your face; Or, if you fhow your face, you must not speak. He calls again; I pray you, answer him.

[Exit FRANCISCA. ISAB. Peace and profperity! Who is't that calls?

Enter LUCIO.

LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be; as those cheek-
rofes

Proclaim you are no lefs! Can you fo ftead me,
As bring me to the fight of Isabella,

A novice of this place, and the fair fifter
To her unhappy brother Claudio?

ISAB. Why her unhappy brother? let me afk;
The rather, for I now muft make you know
I am that Ifabella, and his fifter.

Lucio. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly
greets you:

Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
ISAB. Woe me! For what?

Lucio. For that, which, if myself might be his judge,'

He should receive his punishment in thanks:
He hath got his friend with child.

5 For that, which, if myself might be his judge,] Perhaps thefe words were tranfpofed at the prefs. The fenfe feems to requireThat, for which, &c. MALONE,

ISAB. Sir, make me not your story."

LUCIO.

It is true.

I would not-though 'tis my familiar fin

make me not your ftory.] Do not, by deceiving me, make me a fubject for a tale. JOHNSON.

Perhaps only, Do not divert yourself with me, as you would with a ftory, do not make me the subject of your drama. Benedick talks of becoming the argument of his own scorn.

Sir W. D'Avenant reads-fcorn instead of story.

After all, the irregular phrafe [me, &c.] that, perhaps, obfcures this paffage, occurs frequently in our author, and particularly in the next fcene, where Efcalus fays: "Come me to what was done to her."—" Make me not your ftory," may therefore fignifyinvent not your story on purpose to deceive me. "It is true," in Lucio's、 reply, means-What I have already told you, is true. STEEVENS.

Mr. Ritfon explains this passage," do not make a jeft of me." REED. I have no doubt that we ought to read (as I have printed,) Sir, mock me not:-your story.

So, in Macbeth:

"Thou com'ft to use thy tongue :-thy ftory quickly.” In King Lear we have-" Pray, do not mock me.'

I befeech you, Sir, (fays Ifabel) do not play upon my fears; referve this idle talk for fome other occafion;-proceed at once to your tale. Lucio's fubfequent words, [" "Tis true,"-i. e. you are right; I thank you for reminding me;] which, as the text has been hitherto printed, had no meaning, are then pertinent and clear. Mr. Pope was fo fenfible of the impoffibility of reconciling them to what preceded in the old copy, that he fairly omitted them.

What Ifabella fays afterwards, fully fupports this emendation : "You do blafpheme the good, in mocking me."

I have obferved that almost every paffage in our author, in which there is either a broken speech, or a sudden transition without a connecting particle, has been corrupted by the carelessness of either the transcriber or compofitor. See a note on Love's Labour's Loft, Act. II. fc. i:

"A man of-fovereign, peerless, he's esteem'd."

And another on Coriolanus, A&t I, sc. iv :

"You shames of Rome! you herd of-Boils and plagues "Plafter you o'er!" MALONE.

✦ I would not—] i. e. Be affured, I would not mock you. So afterwards: "Do not believe it:" i. e. Do not fuppofe that I would mock you. MALONE.

I am fatisfied with the fenfe afforded by the old punctuation.

VOL. IV.

P

STEEVENS.

With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jeft, Tongue far from heart,-play with all virgins fo: I hold you as a thing ensky'd, and sainted;

8 'tis my familiar fin

With maids to feem the lapwing,] The Oxford editor's note on this paffage is in thefe words: The lapwings fly, with feeming fright and anxiety, far from their nefts, to deceive those who feek their young. And do not all other birds do the fame? But what has this to do with the infidelity of a general lover, to whom this bird is compared? It is another quality of the lapwing that is here alluded to, viz. its perpetually flying fo low and fo near the paffenger, that he thinks he has it, and then is fuddenly gone again. This made it a pro-" verbial expreffion to fignify a lover's falfhood: and it seems to be a very old one; for Chaucer, in his Plowman's Tale, fays:

66

— And lapwings that well conith lie." WARBURTON. The modern editors have not taken in the whole fimilitude here: they have taken notice of the lightness of a spark's behaviour to his miftrefs, and compared it to the lapwing's hovering and fluttering as it flies. But the chief, of which no notice is taken, is," and to jeft." (See Ray's Proverbs) "The lapwing cries, tongue far from heart." i. e. most fartheft from the neft, i. e. She is, as Shakspeare has it here,-Tongue far from heart. "The farther fhe is from her neft, where her heart is with her young ones, fhe is the louder, or perhaps all tongue." SMITH,

Shakspeare has an expreffion of the like kind, in his Comedy of Errors:

"Adr. Far from her neft the lapwing cries away;

"My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curfe." We meet with the fame thought in Lyly's Campafpe, 1584); from whence Shakspeare might borrow it!

"Alex. you refemble the lapwing, who crieth most where her neft is not, and fo, to lead me from efpying your love for Campafpe, you cry Timoclea." GREY.

9 I would not—though 'tis my familiar fin

With maids to feem the lapwing, and to jeft,

Tongue far fromheart,-play with all virgins fo: &c.] This paf

fage has been pointed in the modern editions thus:

'Tis true:-I would not (though 'tis my familiar fin
With maids to feem the lapwing, and to jeft,

Tongue far from heart) play with all virgins fo:

I hold you, &c.

According to this punctuation, Lucio is made to deliver a fentiment directly oppofite to that which the author intended. Though

By your renouncement, an immortal spirit ;
And to be talk'd with in fincerity,

As with a faint.

ISAB. You do blafpheme the good, in mocking me.

LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth,*

'tis thus:

Your brother and his lover

As those that feed grow full;

have embrac'd:
as bloffoming time,*

'tis my common practice to jeft with and to deceive all virgins, I would not fo play with all virgins.

The fenfe, as I have regulated my text, appears to me clear and cafy. 'Tis very true, (fays he) I ought indeed, as you jay, to proceed at once to my flory. Be affured, I would not mock you. Though it is my familiar practice to jeft with maidens, and, like the lapwing, to deceive them by my infincere prattle, though, I say, it is my ordinary and habitual practice to sport in this manner with all virgins, yet I should never think of treating you fo; for I confider you, in confequence of your having renounced the world, as an immortal fpirit, as one to whom I ought to fpeak with as much fincerity as if I were addreffing a faint. MALONE.

66

Mr. Malone complains of a contradiction which I cannot find in the fpeech of Lucio. He has not faid that it is his practice to jeft with and deceive all virgins. Though (fays he) it is my practice with maids to feem the lapwing, I would not play with all virgins fo;" meaning that she herself is the exception to his ufual practice. Though he has treated other women with levity, he is ferious in his addrefs to her. STEEVENS.

* Fewness and truth, &c.] i. e. in few words, and those true ones. In few, is many times thus used by Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

3 Your brother and his lover-] i. e. his mistress; lover, in our author's time, being applied to the female as well as the male fex. Thus, one of his poems, containing the lamentation of a deserted maiden, is entitled, "A Lover's Complaint."

So, in Tarleton's Newes out of Purgatory, bl. 1. no date: "-he Spide the fetch, and perceived that all this while this was his lover's husband, to whom he had revealed these escapes." MALONE.

as blooming time,

That from the feednefs the bare fallow brings

To teeming foifon; even fo-] As the sentence now ftands, it is apparently ungrammatical. I read,

At blooming time, &c.

That from the feedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison; even so her plenteous womb
Expreffeth his full tilth and husbandry.

ISAB. Some one with child by him?-My cousin
Juliet?

Lucio. Is the your coufin?

ISAB. Adoptedly; as fchool-maids change their

ISAB. O, let him marry her!

She it is.

LUCIO. This is the point. The duke is very ftrangely gone from hence; Bore many gentlemen, myfelf being one, In hand, and hope of action: but we do learn

That is, As they that feed grow full, fo her womb now at bloffoming time, at that time through which the feed time proceeds to the harvest, her womb shows what has been doing. Lucio ludicrously calls pregnancy blooming time, the time when fruit is promifed, though not yet ripe. JOHNSON.

Inftead of that, we may read-doth; and, inftead of brings, bring. Foizon is plenty. So, in The Tempest:

nature fhould bring forth,

"Of its own kind, all foizon," &c. Teeming foizon, is abundant produce. STEEVENS.

The paffage feems to me to require no amendment; and the meaning of it is this: "As bloffoming time proves the good tillage of the farmer, fo the fertility of her womb expreffes Claudio's full tilth and husbandry." By blossoming time is meant, the time when the ears of corn are formed. M. MASON.

This fentence, as Dr. Johnfon has obferved, is apparently ungrammatical. I fufpect two half lines have been loft. Perhaps however an imperfect fentence was intended, of which there are many inftances in these plays:-or, as might have been used in the fenfe of like. Tilth is tillage.

So, in our author's 3d Sonnet:

"For who is the fo fair, whofe unear'd womb

"Difdains the tillage of thy hufbandry?" MALONE.

Bore many gentlemen,

In hand, and hope of action:] To bear in hand is a common